Part 4 (2/2)
[35:1] The fifth edition is dated 1703
[46:1] Many a reader hasthese lines in the _Essays of Elia_ (_The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple_)
[47:1] _Poee, 1905
CHAPTER III
A CIVIL SERVANT IN THE TIME OF THE COMMONWEALTH
When Andrew Marvell first made John Milton's acquaintance is not known
They e
Fairfax h it is just as likely that Milton introduced Marvell to Fairfax All we know is that when the engage then minded to serve the State in soues for ould now be called a testih to obtain in the form of a letter to the Lord-President of the Council, John Bradshaw Milton seeenerally popular even on his own side, and in the _Defensio Secunda pro populo Anglicano_ extols his character and attainments in sonorous latinity Bradshaw had become in February 1649 the first President of the new Council of State, which, after the disappearance of the king and the abolition of the House of Lords, took over the burden of the executive, and clai to anybody it chose an oath requiring theainst the king, and of their abolition of kingly governislative and supreme poholly in the House of Commons
Before the creation of this Council the duties of Latin Secretary to the Parlia Rudolph Weckherlin, a Gerlishwoman He retired in bad health at this time, and Milton was appointed to his place in 1649 When, later on, the sight of the most illustrious of all our civil servants failed him, Weckherlin returned to the office as Milton's assistant In Deceain compelled Weckherlin's retirement[49:1]
Milton's letter to Bradshaho had made his home at Eton, is dated February 21, 1653, and is as follows:--
”MY LORD,--But that it would be an interruption to the public wherein your studies are perpetually employed, I should now and then venture to supply thus h it were onely ht one, to ments of your many favours; which I both do at this tiht my part to let you know of, that there will be with you to-entleman whose name is Mr Marvile, a man whoular desert for the State to make use of, who also offers himself, if there be any employment for him His father was the Minister of Hull, and he hath spent four years abroad in Holland, France, Italy, and Spain to very good purpose, as I believe, and the gaining of these four languages, besides he is a scholer and well-read in the Latin and Greek authors, and no doubt of an approved conversation, for he now comes lately out of the house of the Lord Fairfax, as Generall, where he was intrusted to give sohter If upon the death of Mr Weckerlyn the Councell shall think that I shall need any assistance in the perforh for s to me, except it be in point of attendance at Conferences with Ambassadors, which I must confess in my condition I am not fit for) it would be hard for theentleman: one who, I believe, in a short time would be able to do them as much service as Mr Ascan This, my Lord, I write sincerely without any other end than to perfor the aside those jealousies and that eing in such a coadjutor; and reed and faithful servant, JOHN MILTON
”_Feb 21, 1652_ (OS)”
Addressed: ”For the Honourable the Lord Bradshawe”
No handsomer testimonial than this was ever penned It was unsuccessful
When Milton wrote to Bradshaw, Weckherlin was in fact dead, and on his retirement in the previous December, John Thurloe, the very handy Secretary of the Council, had for the time assumed Weckherlin's duties, and obtained on that score an addition to his salary No actual vacancy, therefore, occurred on Weckherlin's death None the less, shortly afterwards, Philip Meadows, also a Cae man, was appointed Milton's assistant, and Marvell had to wait four years longer for his place
When Marvell's connection with Eton first began is not to be ascertained His friend, John Oxenbridge, who had been driven frodalen Hall, Oxford, by Laud in 1634 to
”Where the remote Bermudas ride,”
but had returned hoe Oliver St John, who at this tie, and had e's sister, was known to Marvell, and may have introduced him to his brother-in-law At all events Marvell frequently visited Eton, where, however, he had the good sense to frequent not s where the ”ever memorable” John Hales, ejected from his fellowshi+p, spent the last years of his life
”I account it no srown up into some part of his acquaintance and conversed awhile with the living remains of one of the clearest heads and best prepared breasts in Christendom”[51:1]
Hales died in 1656, and his _Golden Remains_ were first published three years later Marvell's words of panegyric are singularly well chosen It is a curious commentary upon the confused times of the Civil War and Restoration that perhaps never before, and seldoland contained so many clear heads and well-prepared breasts as it did then Sht upon their is
The Lord Bradshae know, had a home in Eton, and on the occasion of one of Marvell's evidently frequent visits to the Oxenbridges, Milton entrusted him with a letter to Bradshaw and a presentation copy of the _Secunda defensio_ Marvell delivered both letter and book, and seeuished author that he had done so But alas for the vanity of the writing man! The sublime poet, who in his early e to write _Paradise Lost_, demanded further and better particulars as to the precise manner in which the chief of his office received, not only the book, but the letter which accompanied it nobody is now left to think much of Bradshaw, but in 1654 he was an excellent representative of the class Carlyle was fond of describing as the _alors celebre_ Prompted by this desire, Milton , as he well kne to do, his surprise at the curtness of his friend's former communication, and Marvell's reply to this letter has co before _Paradise Lost_ he recognised the essential greatness of the blind secretary, and his letter is a fine exareat man Be it remembered, as we read, that this letter was not addressed to one of the greatest names in literature, but to a petulant and often peevish scholar, living of necessity in great retirement, whose name is never once mentioned by Clarendon, and about whom the voluminous Thurloe, whoto say except that he was ”a blind man rote Latin letters” Odder still, perhaps, Richard Baxter, whose history of his own life and ti books in the world, never so much as mentions the one and only man whose naiven to the age about which Baxter riting so laboriously
”HONOURED SIR,--I did not satisfie e your Book to h it seeer's speedy returne the saht from Eaton would permit ive you satisfaction neither concerninge the delivery of your Letter at the same time Be pleased therefore to pardon ether But my Lord read not the Letter while I ith him, which I attributed to our despatch, and soe thereto, which I therefore wished ill to, so farr as it hindred an affaireyour Letter And to tell you truly ht that he would not open it while I was there, because heit just upon ht in it some second proposition like to that which you had before e However, I assure myself that he has since read it, and you, that he did then witnesse all respecte to your person, and as e your work as could be expected from so cursory a review and so sudden an account as he could then have of it froe, at his returne froive you thanks for his book, as I do with all acknowledgement and humility for that you have sentof it by heart; estees else), as the ht of the Roman Eloquence, when I consider how equally it turnes and rises with so ures it see ascent we see imboss'd the severall monuments of your learned victoryes: And Salreat a triuht I know, you shall have forced, as Trajan the other, to make themselves away out of a just desperation
I have an affectionate curiousity to knohat becolad that Mr Skynner is got near you, the happinesse which I at the sa none who doth, if I may so say, more jealously honour you then, Honoured Sir, Your most affectionate humble servant, ANDREW MARVELL
”Eaton, _June 2, 1654_”
Addressed: ”For my most honoured friend, John Milton, Esquire, Secretarye for the Forrain affaires at his house in Petty France, Westminster”
To conclude Marvell's Eton experiences; in 1657, and very shortly before his obtaining his appointment as Milton's assistant in the place of Philip Meadoas sent on a mission to Lisbon, Marvell was chosen by the Lord-Protector to be tutor at Eton to Cromwell's ward, Mr